1950 White Center (yellow, pink and lavender on rose) by Rothko2007 SOLD for $ 73M including premium by Sotheby's

1954 Red-Blue Shock by Rothko2012 SOLD 75 M$ including premium

In 1954 Mark Rothko is invited by the Art Institute of Chicago to prepare a solo exhibition. He selects eight of his works. The event will have a huge impact on his reputation.

Since several years at that time, he organizes his paintings in confrontations of colors for which the composition in stacks of rectangular blocks is always present but is no longer the essential element.

1954 No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue) is one of the eight works presented in Chicago. It is already typical of the exceptional understanding of Rothko to achieve the maximum emotional level.

It is very large, 289 x 172 cm. Divided into several shades, the reds dominate. At the bottom of the canvas, the red hegemony is interrupted by an aggressive bright blue rectangle. This painting is estimated $ 35M, for sale by Sotheby's inNew Yorkon November 13. It is illustrated in the release shared by Artdaily.

In subsequent years, the reds will increasingly be the major actors in the artistic drama realized by Rothko, taking drama in its etymological meaning of theater. They will now have less need to rely on opponents like the blue of that No. 1.

1958 The Transcending Color of Mark Rothko2015 SOLD for $ 82M including premium

In 1958, Mark Rothko is famous and unhappy. He is unhappy because he is famous and because he sees the public admiring the game of balance between the bright colors of his signature blocks. He targeted to show the variety of emotions from mystical to profane but is he more than just a designer?

He accepts at first a huge order for the future restaurant in Seagram's building but this step forward certainly increases his confusion. In an extraordinary burst of creativity, he rejects the vivid colors. Rembrandt knew how to throw the light out of the shadow, there is no reason that could prevent Rothko to do it.

On May 15, 2013 in New York, Christie's sold for $ 27M including premium a Black on Maroon 183 x 114 cm that participates in that momentum and is not yet a symptom of the tragic depression of the artist in the following decade.

On May 13 in New York, Christie's sells as lot 35B the No 10 (1958), oil on canvas 239 x 176 cm. An infinite variety of colors predominantly brown interweaves within the rectangles whose structure is superseded by a magnificent halo effect.

When he broke with Seagram's, Rothko said not without wickedness that he wanted to cut hunger to the restaurant's guests. With this No. 10 contemporary of that failed project, the frustrated artist wanted to replace the sensational by the sublime but his art was to become increasingly elitist.

The video shared by Christie's shows the key importance of that year in the creative process of this highly temperamental artist.

1961 The Vibrant Vermilion of Mark Rothko2012 SOLD 87 M$ including premium

The art of Mark Rothko reached the top of its power in 1961.

The dimensions of his canvases have increased and are standardized. The rectangles occupy almost all the available surface, over a negligible neutral background. Most significantly, the preferred color of the artist is now the most vibrant of them : red.

On May 8in New York,Christie's sells an oil on canvas, 236 x 206 cm, titled Orange, Red, Yellow. It is dominated by a bright vermilion, omnipresent, whose perfect monochromy is the result of a meticulous brushwork.

This painting was owned since 1967 by a demanding collector who considered it as one of the most successful pieces in Rothko's art. Its estimate, $ 35M, is consistent with the results already discussed in this column for his works of the same year.

POST SALE COMMENT

The demanding collector had a good taste. 45 years later, his vermilion Rothko is enshrined as one of the masterpieces of the artist. It was sold $ 87M including premium.

It is gratifying to note that this fabulous price rewards a work from the best years of maturity of the master. The oil on canvas with more varied colors which was sold $ 73M including premium by Sotheby's on May 15, 2007 was made in 1950, 11 years before.

1961 The Existential Abstraction of Barnett Newman2014 SOLD 84 M$ including premium

Barnett Newman was a mystical atheist inspired by the creation of monotheism. His search for a non-figurative authenticity was intuitive and emotional. His art is rare, with long periods of interruption in his creative process.

The Onement series symbolizing the creation of the world includes only six paintings made from 1948 to 1953. The monochromatic surface is the result of a careful application of additional layers of paint as Rothko was doing. The only element of picture is a thin vertical central strip named the zip which shows that the homogeneity of the universe is an illusion.

In 1957, Newman suffers his first heart attack which generates a mystical crisis on the abandonment of man facing mortality. Despite his atheism, he takes his inspiration in the Calvary of Christ. The color is replaced by a deep black occupying the entire surface excepted some vertical strips of raw canvas. He finished the series of Stations in 1966.

Newman's psychological crisis worsens with the sudden death of his younger brother in 1961. Black Fire I, in the same technique as the Stations, manages to express in a single canvas the whole existential tragedy. The growth of the black area from left to right is blocked by a vertical zip. The right side is not painted.

The title of the work is a reference to the Judaic magma of mystical material anticipating the Torah.

This oil on canvas 290 x 213 cm is for sale by Christie's in New York on May 13. This outstanding work has no recent antecedent on the auction market and the price is unpredictable. I invite you to play the audio shared by Christie's.

POST SALE COMMENT

This highly emotional abstract painting was sold for $ 84M including premium.

1963 The Disaster of America2013 SOLD 105 M$ including premium

The American dream is not enough to express the world. Very early, Andy Warhol wants to confront death. Death and Disaster is the generic name he gave to this new artistic theme. The news spread by the magazines are horrible. In 1963, Andy rescreened the images of their most terrible car accidents.

On November 13 in New York, Sotheby's sells Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster), 267 x 416 cm. It is a diptych, estimated $ 60M. It is illustrated on the blog post shared by Sotheby's.

On the left, the image is repeated fifteen times in three columns and five rows, with some variations in the shades of gray. On the right, the area is empty, as if the horrific scene had an extension inviting for the destruction of other lives and other cars. Warhol made ​​a similar use of the diptych in some pictures of Liz.

Another accident of the same year based on two different images became famous in the history of auctions when Christie's sold Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I), 229 x 203 cm, for $ 72M including premium on 16 May 2007 from a lower estimate of $ 25M showing that the tragic dimension of Warhol's art had not yet been appreciated at its fair value .

The pale green of the Burning car and the apparent incompleteness of its sequence in the bottom right corner put this image in the direct continuity of the Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster).

1963 The King and the Bad Boy2014 SOLD for $ 82M including premium

After exploiting the adoration of the public for two actresses, Marilyn and Liz, Andy Warhol looked at the male actors. OnNovember 12 in New York, Christie's sells two of his most outstanding works in this theme, the Triple Elvis (Ferus Type) and the Quadruple Marlon. Both men, each in his own way, embodied the rebellion of the younger generation.

The 1963 exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles gave an opportunity for the artist to prepare multiple images of the King on a silver background that evoked the movie screen. On 9 May 2012, Sotheby's sold for $ 37M including premium a Double Elvis (Ferus Type), 208 x 122 cm, for which the inequality of density of the two identical figures brings a feeling of frenzy.

For the Triple Elvis, lot 9 of the next sale, 208 x 173 cm, the three overlapping figures are of equal density but the momentum is provided by their unequal interval.

To honor Marlon in 1966, Andy uses an untreated canvas that enhances the brilliance. On most images, rarer than Elvis, the Bad Boy is a rebel confined to the right side of the canvas.

A Double Marlon 213 x 243 cm, was sold for $ 32M including premium at Christie's on 13 May 2008. The Four Marlons, lot 10 of the next sale, 206 x 165 cm, is the only in this series for which the image occupies the entire surface in two rows of two pictures.

Both lots, to be sold separately, come from a German collection built for decorating a casino. The press release of September 10 announced a global estimate in the region of $ 130M for the two lots.

I invite you to play the two videos shared by Christie's: Elvis andMarlon.

​1964 The New Blondes​2015 SOLD for $ 95M including premium

The American pop movement that develops around Castelli in the early 1960s is pushing popular themes into major art. At the same time, the status of women is undergoing profound transformations, along with the debates that will soon change forever the legal aspects of contraception and abortion.

Roy Lichtenstein is clever and subtle. His reuse of pictures from comics associated with his recreation of color in carefully painted patterns similar as printing dots maintains his characters within a fantasy world. His young blondes become an ersatz of the new modern woman. They occupy a dominant position in his art from the first Crying girl of 1963.

On November 9 in New York, Christie's sells Nurse, oil and acrylic on canvas 122 x 122 cm painted in 1964, lot 13A. The press release of October 16 indicates an estimate in the region of $ 80M.

The blonde is nervous : closed fist, open mouth, looking sideways, uncombed hair. It is obvious that something is going wrong for this young woman in a nurse's uniform. She is not pretty with her thin cheeks and big eyes. She is an ordinary woman subjected to intense passions. She has problems just like you and me.

The artist has liberated his scenes from the cells of the comics by removing the texts. He is right: the empathy with the character is strengthened by this mystery that can be closed out by looking into the original comics. The disarray of the nurse is due to a discussion in the next room between the doctor whom she attempted to seduce and her rival who calls her a liar.

​I invite you to watch the video shared by Christie's, including voiced sequences with the artist.

1966 Four Marlons by Warhol2014 SOLD for $ 70M including premium by Christie's

​1968 Rhythm and Loop​2015 SOLD for $ 71M including premium

Life is not expressed in figuration. Cy Twombly tries the rhythm in a musicalist approach. His long stays in Italy provide the model of the antique graffiti, interesting for several reasons: their juxtaposition let imagine some shapes and movements, details can be pornographic, and their fast and furtive execution is an example of a graphical application of the subconscious.

An automatic writing can be done in pencil on paper, but modern art appeals for large formats. From 1966, Twombly painted canvases in a uniform gray on which he was drawing with a wax crayon the figures of his mind. This series will be identified under the generic name of Blackboards.

The first tests combine the jerky action of the hand, expressing the reflex, with geometric figures that make a link with the former graffiti of the artist. This mixed meaning blurs his intention to express life. His Blackboards do not need to rely on the persistence of ancient impulses. The most interesting Blackboards will be performed in New York.

One of them, 173 x 216 cm, painted in 1968, has been sold for $ 8.7M including premium by Sotheby's on 9 November 2005. An oblique line of high jerky and irregular eight shaped loops runs throughout the width.

About that time, Twombly improves his approach like a proto-writing. The shape of the loop has a graphological value and will vary depending on the mood of the artist at the time of its creation.

On November 11 in New York, Sotheby's sells at lot 18 a 173 x 269 cm blackboard painted by Twombly also in 1968, but later in its maturity than the example discussed above.

The line consists in an entanglement of proto-writings in repetitive loops forming six thick horizontal lines within very regular limits. These lines that become wider from top to bottom of the canvas generate an illusion of perspective.

1970 Cy Twombly in Quest of Writing2014 SOLD for $ 70M including premium

Cy Twombly was projecting in his art his initial training in cryptology and his aesthetic feelings. In his first Roman period, he imagines that the colored patches that he positions on the canvas are reminiscent of messages too erased for being understood but opening an access to mythical meanings.

From 1966 Twombly continues his semiotic research towards psychoanalysis. On the black canvas that resembles the board of infant schools, he draws in white his messages which are indecipherable in direct reading but speak to the mind of the viewer.

The comparison between two canvases painted in 1970 show that the artist is seeking to express the diversity of humanity as well as his own creativity. Now inspired by graphology, Twombly's art describes and interprets the range of human characters in the fundamental and formative phase of early childhood.

One of these Blackboards, located in New York City, 144 x 178 cm, was sold for $ 17.5M including premium by Sotheby's on May 9, 2012. The writing is nervous, with angles and backtracking.

Another example, 156 x 190 cm, is not located in the title but has been painted after the return to Rome of the artist. It is estimated $ 35M for sale by Christie's in New York on November 12, lot 20.

Here, the fake writing is made of very regular loops as if they came from an intelligent and quiet schoolchild, but their four lines form a tangled hair which widens from top to bottom in a false perspective.

​1982 The Energy of a Skull​2017 SOLD for $ 110M including premium

The participation of Jean-Michel Basquiat in a collective exhibition in February 1981 attracted the attention of three merchants who will separately have a leading role in the start of his career : Emilio Mazzoli, Annina Nosei and Bruno Bischofberger.

It is to the honor of Annina Nosei to have convinced Jean-Michel that her basement was more appropriate than the streets of New York to let his skills explode. This close collaboration during which the artist can finally work regularly on very large canvases lasted from September 1981 to November 1982.

During that first year Jean-Michel mostly displays characters in full length, apostles of negritude whose transparency of the flesh reveals the skeleton. His perfectly mastered technique with acrylic, spray and oilstick and his fast and accurate stroke bring the expression of an activism unprecedented in art.

A new year begins, with new advances in his artistic language. On May 18 in New York, Sotheby's sells at lot 24 a painting 183 x 173 cm executed in January 1982 for the Nosei Gallery. The April 19 press release announces an estimate over $ 60M.

Like many opus by Jean-Michel, it is untitled. The theme is limited to a huge head to which bright colors and aggressive teeth provide an angry expression. By its transparency, it is a skull or perhaps a mask. Without neck or body, it floats before a blue sky that is perhaps only a gap in a tagged wall.

The monumental heads painted in 1982 are the culmination of the art of Jean-Michel. The devil's head on a canvas 239 x 500 cm painted in March in Modena for Mazzoli was sold for $ 57M including premium by Christie's on May 10, 2016. Pairs of characters also appear : Dustheads was sold for $ 49M including premium on 15 May 2013, also by Christie's.